Phoenix Rising
by wolfern
Summary: AU; starts at the end of SCORPIA Rising (AR), post-Deathly Hallows (HP). SPOILERS. Smithers is Irish; so is Seamus Finnigan. What happens when he decides to step in? There's a giant new world out there for Alex to be embroiled in.
1. Chapter 1

**Phoenix Rising**

**Chapter One**

Disclaimer:

For my sake, reader  
take this story as disclaimed;  
It's not mine at all!

**AN: This story might be confusing to those who can't remember the basic plot of SCORPIA Rising. Here's what's happened up to this point:**

_There was a shooting at Alex's school. He chased the gunman, sending his escape helicopter and him into the Thames. Alex was then sent to Cairo, along with Jack and Smithers, to investigate the head of security at a school. While investigating, Alex narrowly escaped death when a jewellery shop he had entered blew up, but was subsequently kidnapped. It turned out that the kidnappers were the CIA, who were there to protect the American secretary of state. Alex then made his way to Smithers' house, which was attacked by SCORPIA. Now, Smithers and Alex are escaping through a marketplace._

* * *

"_It's time I disappeared."_

Alex stared at the new, skinnier Smithers.

"I never meant to deceive you," this stranger said in a broad Irish accent. "I developed the Smithers disguise for fieldwork, and became attached to its anonymity and consequent safety. My real name's Seamus."

Jaw gaping, Alex was unable to answer Seamus. In a daze, he watched as the man rolled up the deflated body of the English Smithers and tucked it under his arm.

"Never leave a gadget where the enemy can find it," was the accompanying comment.

The blond spy nodded numbly, and jumped as Smithers – Seamus – clapped a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Now, how about we get you back to the apartment and safely on a plane home. I'll make my own way back from there. I can always start again. Who knows, maybe I'll meet you when Jones makes you deputy!"

The lithe man gave a humorous chuckle. "Now, don't look so shocked. I wouldn't be surprised if we return to find Blunt leaving, and Jones put in place. Westminster hasn't been very happy with him since finding out about you."

They set off.

Maintaining a brisk pace, Alex was reminded of a weight-loss advertisement he'd once seen in on TV back home. What had it been? _Inside every fat man there's a thin man trying to break out. _He'd joked with Tom about the probability of that happening literally, and in typical teenage tomfoolery a bet had been wagered.

Tom would be five pounds richer when Alex returned.

Smithers – Seamus – and Alex retraced Alex's steps away from the square, joining a pack of tourists exiting the souk. Alex shivered as a group of white-suited tourist police ran past, and caught a glimpse of uncharacteristic grimness on the man beside him. _Was_ it uncharacteristic? He didn't know anymore.

Alex looked at his watch, glancing up when Smi—Seamus commented, "You should call Ms Starbright."

Doing so, he was unnerved to receive no answer from his friend. He tried again, this time letting it ring for longer.

Still no answer.

Smithers' face stiffened into a frown and Alex noticed his hand twitch strangely beside his pocket. "Well, we'd better hurry up, then."

The street was empty, but upon turning a corner, they happened across a gleaming Triumph Bonneville motorbike, lying innocuously against a building, its keys conveniently stuck in the ignition.

Smithers – _Seamus!_ – looked at him. "What are you waiting for? You're driving."

Alex's eyes widened, but he hastened to do as the man said. Try as he might, he couldn't shake the feeling that the bike's appearance was just too much of a coincidence.

What did Blunt like to say, again? _Where others see coincidence, I see conspiracy._

His grip tightened on the handlebars as the older man settled himself on the leather pillion seat, seemingly unsurprised by the turn of events.

"Drive on, MacDuff!"

And they were off.

After what seemed the longest wait, Alex pulled into the complex, dismounting from the bike before the engine completely settled. Ignoring Seamus' cries to be careful, he raced up to the flat.

The door was open.

While Seamus caught up, Alex padded into the flat. When he had checked all rooms, noting with trepidation the fully-packed suitcases laying open on the floor of her room alongside a neat stack of souvenirs, their passports and some cash, he watched as Seamus walked over to a half-finished glass of Coke on the kitchen table.

The brown-haired Irishman picked the glass up and turned it over in his hands. "It's lukewarm." Their eyes met. "She's been gone a while."

Alex slumped. He'd been hoping, but… But nothing. She'd been taken. He sighed in defeat, and collapsed onto a chair that still had her imprint on its suede cover.

Then he saw the note.

It lay on the cabinet beneath the TV, malevolent black letters against a gleaming white sheet.

Alex walked over and picked it up.

_We have Jack Starbright. If you want to see her again, come to the City of the Dead at 3.00pm this afternoon. The Tomb of the Broken Moon. Do not be late. Do not speak to anyone. If you call MI6, she will die. If you contact the school, she will die. If you are not alone, she will die. We are watching you now. We are listening. Obey these instructions or you will never see your friend again._

A trembling hand showed the note to Seamus, whose brow furrowed.

"I have to go," said Alex bleakly, and with a sense of purpose, he rose from the chair and headed for the door, only to blink to a stop. Seamus was suddenly barring his way and had never looked so forbidding.

"Let me through," Alex insisted. "I have to help her." He shoved his body forward, but was unable to break past the steel muscles of the Irishman. It was quite different than trying to break past the ordinary Smithers – although, of course, this _was_ the ordinary Smithers. Seamus. And what a strange thought that was.

The Irish gadget-master shook his head. "I know you have no choice, and I'm going to let you go," he sighed. "But remember, please; treat this like any other mission. Don't get caught up just because it's personal."

Alex nodded, bemused but calmer.

"And be _very _careful."

"I will."

"Good luck."

"_I think I've found a way out…"_

_The car blew up._

_Julius fired a single shot. But Alex fired first._

Alex faced Joe Byrne in the Grand Hall of the University Campus. It had only been a few days since the two last met, yet it seemed an eternity to Alex.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Not without Jack: his nanny, housekeeper and older sister in all but name.

Joe Byrne's face reflected Alex's feelings, a thin veneer of blankness covering his shuddering disbelief.

With Byrne's prompting, Alex told the story concisely, detachedly. If he could just get this over and done with, finish the job and remove Jack's killer, then he could collapse. Then he could recover.

He watched stiffly as the short, moustached Egyptian and Byrne conversed.

He answered the Egyptian's questions.

And then he demanded to be taken with the soldiers to kill Razim.

They refused, of course. To them, Alex was still a wide-eyed child who had never really quite realised what a world he was in. He'd skimmed the surface, sometimes dipping down for a look-see, but never trawling the depths for too long.

Alex told them about Razim's radar warning and missiles. His mines. The helicopter waiting to take Julius Grief back to the fort – or to take Alex, as Grief. He was met with dismissive, curt answers, but he persisted.

It was obvious when the Egyptian decided to agree. The man relaxed and rocked back on his heels, something in his eyes saying, 'Well, if you want to die, don't let me stop you.' A good commander always puts his own men and the people he protects ahead of any other person, including himself. Alex was relying on this.

Once the Egyptian was persuaded, Byrne was even easier. As a guest in another country, he was obligated to capitulate to the decisions of the Egyptians, unless they put his fellow Americans, at risk.

Alex was British.

The decision was cemented when an aide confirmed that Julius resembled Alex exactly. Byrne placed a hand on Alex's shoulder. "What did Razim do to you, Alex?"

Pain, despair, anger. Alex flinched. "Razim has an interest in pain. I think it's time he experienced some." He stood. "We shouldn't be here talking. We should be on our way."

"Alex. Are you sure—?"

A brief smile. "There is one other thing.

"This time… I want a gun."

"_I wish you success."_

"_Don't worry about me."_

_Alex felt sickened. He wanted this to be over._

"_Alex…" It was Razim's last word._

_They found him … kneeling beside a burnt-out car._

It seemed as though nothing ever ended. Razim was dead, the threat eliminated, yet Alex found himself yet again standing before Byrne. The man looked at him with pity in his eyes, and understanding, but what could he possibly understand? Alex had said nothing. Jack's death was his secret only.

"Alex," Byrne started slowly, as if searching for the correct words in a storm of meaningless platitudes. "I understand you're in a rough patch."

A mix between the sympathy but lack of empathy from a doctor, and the euphemism of an acquaintance. Alex snorted. "You could say that."

"Perhaps it would be better if you told me what happened," grimaced Byrne.

"What's there to say? Razim was sick." A pause. "And I took Jack with me, I didn't try to tell her not to escape—"

"You're not to blame, Alex."

Alex rolled his eyes sourly. "I know that. But what else could I feel?"

The head of the CIA shifted on his feet.

Thankfully, Alex was saved from baring his soul by a harried soldier who whispered a message to Byrne. The head's eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "Alex," he said almost gently when the soldier had disappeared, "you might want to sit down."

Confused and still shaky from the aftershocks of the night, Alex collapsed onto a wooden chair placed conveniently nearby.

"Alex," Byrne said again, "It seems that…"

"There's been a bit of a mix-up, my boy." Smithers was here, and once again in a fatsuit. He mopped his brow with a comically large handkerchief that could have served as a scarf.

"Mr Smithers… what…?"

Smithers – Seamus – knelt down, balancing his bulk impressively. "I'm so sorry. I tried to get to you on time, but I'm afraid—"

Alex choked when Jack – _but it couldn't be Jack, how could it be Jack? – _slipped through the door, looking exactly as she had before she'd been blown up. Her red hair gleamed in what little light there was in the small room and her skin was flushed with life.

"Alex!" she cried, and rushed towards him. They embraced with all the relief and fervour of two people previously doubting that they would ever see the other alive again.

"I – I thought you were—" Alex choked when they released each other. "How—?" He turned to Smithers. "I saw her die," he stated blandly, fishing. The Irishman had to be involved in Jack's recovery somehow.

But Smithers – Seamus – did not give up his secrets so easily. "What you saw was an illusion, Alex," he replied calmly, and did not go on.

"Jack?" Alex turned to his guardian – his guardian, who was, against all odds, alive, and breathing, and seemingly unharmed.

To his disappointment, she only shrugged. "To be honest, I was pretty out of it. Sorry, Alex."

Shaking his head, Alex carefully pushed all suspicion relating to Seamus to the back of his mind. Jack was safe, he'd finished the mission as best he could and it was time to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**AN: Heyyy! So I said I was considering a continuation for the first chapter, and so here it is! In honour of the first day of school at Hogwarts… or something :P  
Also, this story is going to be a bit different from my other ones. I haven't actually thought up an ending yet, or written the entire thing. So updates are going to be **_**very**_** sporadic, and somewhat dependent on my motivation levels (hint hint) xD**

* * *

"_It was an experiment that we should never have attempted."_

"_You arranged a shooting in a British school!"_

_Alan Blunt's eyes were suddenly tired._

"_Part of Alex Rider died with Julius Grief."_

_It was time to go._

Life without MI6 was different. He'd had a taste of it for the blissful five months before MI6 had upended his life yet again. But it wasn't the same.

Dozens of students had left Brooklands after the shooting, including his best friends Tom Harris and James Hale. They had made new friends at their new schools. Alex didn't know if Tom blamed him for the gunshot wound he'd suffered. The three met up rarely, if ever, now. James' parents had succeeded in stopping him associating with 'that kind of boy'.

Jack had left at the end of the summer holidays, as she'd planned before the shooting. Caring for her father was a full-time job so she and Alex had chatted more and more sporadically over the internet until eventually they'd stopped altogether. It was probably better that way. Alex knew he reminded her of the day in Egypt – the day she'd almost died.

As for Sabina… She'd, as he'd anticipated, acquired a boyfriend. He saw their announcement on Facebook when he returned to England. He decided that she looked happy. Reminding her of their supposed relationship would only make her guilty and upset. He couldn't do that. Not to her.

And Alex? He was still the druggie at Brooklands. The rumour mill had churned out story after story when he returned, that he had set up the shooting in a bizarre vendetta against Tom, that he was part of a gang, that he was part of the mafia…

Initially he'd felt as if a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders. He was ecstatic. Now, he was sure, MI6 would never contact him again. If they did, what could they blackmail him with? He had no guardian, no friends, nothing that he loved. He was careful. No one got too close to Alex Rider. Never again. But as time went on, and he prepared for his GCSEs, and he planned his career after school, Alex became aware of a feeling that had thus far hid beneath his fierce satisfaction.

He had just finished his last exam in Brooklands and was clearing his locker into his bag. There was a hush in the hallway; most of the staff had left and the lights were dimmed for the cleaners who would arrive in about half an hour. Only the brief clatters as he packed his bag interrupted the quiet.

As he zipped up his bag, he hesitated before hefting it onto his shoulder. Was this happiness? This slow, tranquil feeling? A heavy sigh escaped him. He searched for emotions within himself. Was he angry? Triumphant? Upset? Pleased? Alex pulled the bag onto his shoulder. He felt nothing but calm.

Was this happiness?

He walked outside into the cool evening and towards the bike rack where he'd left his bike that morning. When he arrived, surprised rippled through him briefly. The rack was empty. His bike, stolen. He waited for fury to course through him, for indignant exasperation and for rage. But there was nothing. Only that stutter of surprise, and after that…

Detachedly, he wondered if he'd been drugged. Or perhaps this _was_ happiness. This unflappable calm. He'd thought it would have been more… Exciting? Rewarding?

Blankly, he turned to walk home. It wouldn't take too long, and besides, he could come to school late the next day as he had no more exams. In fact, he could skip school for the rest of the week. He could – but he couldn't.

Why not? he asked himself. Why should he go to school if he'd finished all his exams? Why bother walking all that way, now that his bike had been stolen?

Alex blinked and walked faster. Here was the emotion, bubbling to the surface. Why should he even bother leaving the house? There wasn't anything for him to do, it wasn't as if MI6 had anything for him, and if _they_ didn't have a use for him, how could anyone?

What use was he? What could he do? Here was the outrage, the seething bitterness. His life was purposeless. He'd had a purpose. He'd cast it away, he'd stomped on it and shattered it into a million pieces. Now… he was nothing. Nothing at all.

The calm returned. His steps slowed.

What was his future? University? As if that had any importance. A job? He'd had a job, and it had been the most important job in the world: saving it. He laughed hollowly. A machine that decides to rebel, to not do what it was made, programmed, to do… A machine like that would be destroyed. A machine like that was a waste of space. A mistake.

Alex paused and dropped his bag onto the ground. He leant against a fence, breathing heavily although he was not physically tired. The realisation had hit him like the bullet that had thudded into his chest. What good was a spy who would not spy? There was nothing at which he was better. He scuffed his shoe into the water in the gutter. He might as well give up. It wasn't as if there was anyone left to miss him.

He looked into the white light of the moon.

All at once Alex tired of this self-pity. He would go home, have some dinner, go to sleep, and when he woke up in the morning he would wonder what on Earth he'd been thinking. If he did something while he was like this, he'd only regret it. If he was alive to regret it, he thought wryly.

Alex jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and picked his bag up from the footpath.

He took a step, only to shift backwards into a crouch in the shadow of the fence when a man appeared with a loud _crack _in the middle of the road, apparently out of thin air. Some kind of illusion? The man spun around, squinting in the light of the street lamps, and faced where Alex was hiding.

His breath caught in his throat. The man couldn't know he was there; his clothing was dark, the shadows deep. And yet, the man strode directly towards him. Before Alex could even think about reacting, the man had made it to his hiding place and had reached out a hand, somehow intuitively grasping Alex's collar to drag him to his feet.

Without MI6 he'd become slow. In his mind, Alex cursed.

A light lit up from a skinny torch the man was holding, and Alex huffed out a sigh of relief. "Smithers," he greeted the man quietly. He didn't fail to notice the thrill of anticipation that thrummed through his body, so foreign from the past, however long it had been. "What are you doing here?"

The skinny man smiled and the light extinguished. "Alex, my boy – don't you remember? It's Seamus."

Alex tilted his head to acknowledge the truth of the words.

"Look, mate," Smi – Seamus continued hurriedly, "I've got to speak with you. Are you on your way home? Would you like a lift?"

In his surprise at meeting the gadget-master, Alex had momentarily forgotten how he'd appeared. Now it came back to him. "A lift on what? Seamus, how did you—?"

"No time to explain," Seamus cut him off. "Look, let's just keep walking, eh?"

The Irishman began dragging Alex along the footpath, glancing around every so often around them. "Is something wrong?" asked Alex, bemused and a little wary. There was no one about. The street was completely deserted except for them.

"No, no, I just – we'd better get moving."

Smithers rounded a corner and there, as shiny as new, was a Triumph Bonneville motorbike, keys in the ignition. It, to all intents and purposes, was exactly the same as the one they'd rode back in Egypt.

Alex stared at his companion suspiciously, who shrugged weakly. "Get on," was all the Irishman said.

There was no point in asking Seamus how he knew Alex's address. The man knew everything. Alex didn't bother protesting when, after pointing a thin rod, the torch he'd held earlier, at Alex's front door, the locks had opened. Probably magnetic radiation or something, he told himself firmly.

"I always meant to ask you," Alex began, "About Jack… When we were in Egypt –"

"Not here," Smithers cut him off. "Go into the drawing room."

Unprotesting, Alex obeyed, though he glanced back to check Smithers was following him. He was, though he faced away from Alex and was waving his rod around the air, as though clearing spider webs. By the time he finished and also entered the drawing room, Alex stood by the old leather sofa that still carried the marks of Alex's stint as a troublesome toddler.

Seamus ignored the seat, and walked over to the drinks cabinet. Completely at ease with his surroundings, he opened the cabinet doors and opened a bottle of coke, pouring it into a short glass. "Want a drink?" he asked Alex.

Perplexed, Alex shook his head.

Seamus shrugged and took a sip. "I _did_ save Jack," he told Alex.

Alex sagged and collapsed into the sofa. If it hadn't been for Smithers, then, Jack would have died. Just as if it wasn't for Smithers, Alex would've died many times over. "How did you save her?" he asked.

Smithers grimaced. "You won't get the mechanics," he said, "but I'll tell you the gist. I was able to sneak onto Razim's base with, well, let's just call it a magical invisibility cloak."

That would be right, Alex snorted. Many of Smither's gadgets had been so ingenious it seemed as if they _were _magical items.

"I, um, I caught Jack just as she was escaping. Oh yes," Smithers grinned at Alex's raised eyebrows. "That was all her." He chuckled. "So Jack was about to run off and I stupefied her – knocked her unconscious – while simultaneously putting up an illusion. That is, I used a gadget to fool the cameras into seeing Jack going out to that car you saw her climb into."

Alex would never forget those events.

"The rest, you already know," concluded Smithers quietly.

So that was it? Alex was unsatisfied and he told Smithers so. It couldn't be so simple. Just a simple gadget to fool cameras and eyewitnesses from multiple directions? What was Smithers keeping from him?

Seamus frowned slightly and cross his arms. That he was able to do so and wasn't hindered by the bulk of his fatsuit just reminded Alex how little he really knew of the man. "I assure you," the Irishman said, "Everything I told you is true. It'll make a lot more sense once I tell you why I'm here."

Alex waited.

The Irishman ran a hand through his hair. "My friend is an, well, I guess you could say he's in the police. And he's got a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"Look, I'm going to call him, and he'll explain, but before I do, there's something you have to know. A while ago, about the time you were born, there were a lot of unexplained attacks; buildings blowing up, bridges becoming liquid. Yes, liquid… You wouldn't remember, of course – you were too young and, er, yes – but then they all stopped. No-one talks about it anymore. It seems as though the whole affair just… vanished. Like – um, like magic."

"I don't see where you're going with this," Alex sighed, exasperated.

Seamus frowned. "The whole thing has just been forgotten. Don't you think that's weird?"

"Are you sure you're not mistaken? I think people would have remembered something like that. Bridges turning… _liquid._"

"I'm not mistaken, Alex. How about this – do you ever remember seeing something incongruous, something that didn't quite match?"

"I've seen lots of things like that," replied Alex, "it was sort of my job."

A roll of his eyes brought Seamus' voice to a murmur. "I don't mean slightly strange. I mean really odd, like a – like an owl in the sunlight, a house you can only spot out of the corner of your eyes." He smiled, almost nostalgically. "Like a flying car."

Alex raised an eyebrow, then paused. He couldn't remember ever seeing a flying car, but there were those 'invasion of the owls' reports that had been so popular a decade back and now – "What happened to the owl reports?"

Seamus grinned conspiratorially. "Exactly! That's exactly what I mean. What happened to the unexplained attacks, the liquid bridges?"

"I still don't remember any bridges liquidising," responded Alex. "Maybe people just got tired of hearing about owls all the time. They're just birds."

"Just birds!" Seamus exclaimed. "Alex, my boy – um, my, er, colleague, just _think_ for a second. Think about the owl reports. Can you actually remember them?"

"Well, they were quite boring," Alex pondered, "it's sort of fuzzy. Why does it matter? Can't you just call your friend already?"

Seamus sighed. "Alex. You have a near perfect memory. Isn't it odd that you can't recall a couple of reports about something as bizarre as owls in daylight? And you're a spy – aren't you curious?"

It _was_ strange. The owl reports – they were just at the edge of his mind, he knew it, but reaching them was like trudging through a thick grey sludge. And he kept getting distracted. "Something's wrong with me," he told Seamus. "I've never had this much trouble remembering before."

A smile from the gadget maestro. "There's nothing wrong with you. Or if there is, the whole, er, world is sick with it."

"Then why can't I remember?"

"Good question, Alex," hummed Seamus. "Why can't you remember? What's happened to your memory?"

But Alex wasn't listening. "Honestly, we're wasting time. Why can't you call your friend?"

"Focus!" yelled Seamus. "For Merl— if I'd known it was going to be this hard, I would never have started this."

"Started what?"

Seamus leaned in and his voice dropped impossibly low. "What happened to your memory?" he ground out, enunciating each word with care.

"I don't know," groaned Alex. "Can't you just tell me?"

"No," snapped Seamus. "You have to work it out yourself. Now think. Think about the owls. It's like swimming through mud, isn't it?"

Alex looked at him. "How did you know that?"

A twitch of Seamus' lips brought the cryptic remark, "All you have to do is swim, Alex."

Thinking about the grey sludge was difficult, but not as hard as thinking about the owls. Alex approached the memory from the side. It was a bit like swimming through a rip, he reasoned. He could tell he was close.

"Tell me what you remember," Seamus coaxed, voice hushed again.

Alex complied. "An owl – no, two owls – the reporter talking about owls. 'Owls are not usually seen in daylight hours, especially not at midday…' I remember that reporter. She was pretty. What was her name? Sally Gomer-something?"

"Focus, Alex," warned Seamus.

"Er, yes. Owls at midday…" It was hurting his head. "I can't – Seamus, is getting through this sludge supposed to be painful?"

Seamus blinked. "I don't – I mean, maybe. Just keep going, I'll take care of it."

"Pictures of owls… Some biologist talking about owls… You know, I was never that good at biology."

"You're almost there, Alex. What's after the scientist?"

"A – a man, he's interrupted the reporter. The cameraman's shouting something. He's got some kind of stick. What is he—? Oh God." Alex screwed up his face as a bolt of pain thundered through his head as if he'd been punched. No, it was worse. The pain seemed to go on forever, but then there was a _twist_. The pain stopped.

Seamus was looking down at him as he blinked up from the floor. "Alex?" he inquired, grasping something in his pocket. "Are you alright? What do you remember?"

"I think I'm alright," said Alex. "As to what I remember… There was something wrong with those owl reports, wasn't there? I remember that man now."

"Yes?" Seamus encouraged eagerly. "What did he do?"

"He had some kind of rod with him, but it must have been a torch. It was like a torch. He shone it straight into the camera. Then he left and everyone just moved on as if he'd never been there. The cameraman was silent. No one talked about him. He just vanished out of their minds."

Smiling, Seamus helped him up. "It wasn't a torch, Alex. And you're closer than you think." He drew his own torch out of his pocket and held it up. "This looks like a stick to you, am I right?"

Alex nodded. "That's because it is."

"Well, it is a stick," agreed Seamus, somewhat sheepishly, "but it's a very special stick. I would call it a wand."

Alex couldn't stop his lips from twitching upwards at that.

"You don't believe me?" Seamus grinned. "Hold it. Feel anything?"

Alex shook his head. It was just a stick, though intricately carved. What could he possibly feel? Seamus echoed his disappointment with a moue. He took the stick back.

"What did you expect me to feel?" Alex asked.

Shrugging, Seamus glanced around the room, his eyes landing on the glass of coke. "Do you believe in magic, Alex?"

Raised eyebrows told Seamus his answer.

Seamus nodded and aimed the stick at the glass of coke. "I claim that this is a wand that I can use to perform magic."

Alex shrugged and looked at the glass of coke expectantly. The Irishman waved the stick dramatically and muttered something under his breath.

In an instant, the glass of coke had become a black cat, which jumped off the drinks cabinet and walked over to Alex, purring. Alex stumbled backwards in astonishment as he looked to Seamus for an explanation.

Seamus appeared inordinately pleased to see that his trick had worked. "You see? Magic, Alex. That's why you forgot the owls. That's why no one remembers bridges turning into liquid. That's how we found that bike." He pointed outside and continued with a conciliatory smile. "Jack's kidnappers weren't magical, so technically, helping with magic wasn't allowed. But this time we need you – I received permission from the Ministry to show you."

"No," breathed Alex. "No. All of that – magic can't be the answer. It's—"

"Impossible?" Seamus gestured to the cat. "Hardly, though I _was_ hoping for tabby."

Alex gaped.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**AN: In continuing with my tradition of author's notes before chapters, I have an announcement: Doctor'sLittleDalek and I are hosting a fic exchange over at the forum _Revival _(see her profile for the link). If you're interested, please PM her or me :D**

* * *

The black cat which had once been a glass of coke rubbed itself against Alex's legs as he stared at the man before him. He'd always felt that Smithers had secrets, and when he'd learnt that the gadget-master was actually an Irishman in a fatsuit, he'd been surprised, but not overly shocked. But this was too much. _Magic?_ It was laughable. It was completely unbelievable. And yet, as far as Alex could tell, it was true.

"_Now _can I call my friend?"

Unable to formulate a proper response, Alex just nodded.

"Okay." The Irishman shook his arms out as if used to wearing long dangling sleeves that often needed shaking out of the way, and cleared his throat. "Ahem. _Expecto patronum! _Er, hello, if you can just follow my patronus and apparate here, I think I've found someone who can help."

Alex stared at the silver fox which had appeared, cocked its head listening to Seamus' message, and then disappeared in a wisp of silver.

A loud crack and a man, of similar age to Seamus, appeared in the room, startling the black cat and making it dig its claws into Alex's arms. He let it go, and it disappeared under the drinks cabinet, trailing what looked like a mix between cat hair and coke.

The two men clapped each other on the arm. "Seamus!" said the new appearance. "Not exploding feathers anymore?"

Seamus grinned. "Nowadays I get permission to blow up much bigger things, Harry," he said.

"That's right… If only Flitwick could see you now. McGonagall told me you helped explode the bridge in the Battle."

"When did you see her?"

"She called me about the Defence job."

"Why didn't you take it?"

"Are you kidding?! Me, a teacher? Cho took it instead."

"Maybe she'll break the curse," returned Seamus, tucking his stick away.

Alex got the feeling that there was a lot he was missing. The new arrival turned to face him, suddenly critical. "_This_ is your help, Seamus?"

"Oi, you were a champion at his age," Seamus retorted. "And that's with you living with muggles every summer. My boyo here has been prepared ever since he was born."

"Not for this."

"Near enough, Harry."

"_Really_?"

The two men stared at Alex and he stiffened under their combined gazes.

"What's his story?" the man named Harry finally said, rabid curiosity in his eyes. "Is he..?"

"His Uncle trained him," said Seamus.

"And..?"

"And then a similar thing to you happened; some people saw he was useful, and they used him. No 'Chosen One' thing, though."

"Was it his school?"

"No."

"And his parents let his Uncle do this, and they all let him be used?" Harry's eyes were gleaming, almost yearning.

Alex opened his mouth. "I'm an orphan," he said. He winced at the ensuing silence. "Look, d'you want to sit down while you two talk? Do you want tea? Coke?"

As if called by name, the black cat peeked out from under the cabinet, and padded over to Alex.

"Er, tea is fine," said Harry.

"I'll have my coke," Seamus said. He waved his… wand, and then suddenly at Alex's feet was the restored glass of coke. Alex felt a twinge of unexpected regret, but he shook off the feeling and retreated to his kitchen.

As Alex began boiling the kettle and spooning out the tea into two mugs, he tried to listen in on the next room. However, even though he had relatively thin walls, all he heard was buzzing. Seamus or Harry must have done something to prevent eavesdropping. Magic, probably. The water in the kettle boiled, and he poured it over the teabags automatically. It was a relief, he supposed, to finally learn what had occurred on his fateful last mission. But equally, he didn't feel as fulfilled as he'd expected. It seemed like too easy a solution.

Maybe Smithers' gadgets seemed so amazing because they were run on magic. If that was so, then that changed a lot of things. Alex had always believed that much of life was down to the person. With only a few instances of luck, it was possible to achieve greatness by working hard, thinking wisely and gaining help from others. Magic – magic was a cheat. Who knew how many battles had been lost, just because the other side had magic in its arsenal? What if he'd faced, unknowingly, an enemy with magic?

Alex was momentarily stunned frozen by that thought.

A lull in the buzz from the drawing room broke Alex from his mental paralysis. He checked the time, and took the teabags out. "Er, milk?" he called.

"Milk," was the reply, "no sugar."

He returned to the drawing room to see Harry and Seamus seated on the worn leather sofa, facing each other with no room for Alex in between. Alex gave Harry his tea, then went to sit in Ian's wingback chesterfield. He'd never sat in it before. Harry and Seamus were both staring determinedly into their drinks.

"What do you want me for, Smithers?" Alex asked, aiming for casual.

Smithers winced and Harry snorted. "He doesn't even know your name, mate."

"Seamus," Alex corrected, affecting calm. "A mistake."

"How much has Seamus told you?"

"Apart from his name? Just that magic is real."

"Well," said Harry. He leaned forwards. "Magic sounds brilliant, right? No limitations, etcetera, etcetera."

Alex kept his face blank as he brought his tea to his lips. 'Brilliant'. Right. Only if you were the one with the magic, or, if your magic was more powerful than the other guy's.

"That's wrong. There _are _limitations," Seamus continued off from Harry. "And the main one around m - non-magical folk is that magic doesn't work around electricity. All the toys I've given you… If I'd been able to imbue them with magic, it would have been so much easier."

Well, that answered that question. "What about the Bonneville?"

"It wasn't really a motorbike," said Seamus. "It just looked and felt like one. One of my better conjurations, if I do say so myself."

"_Anyway_," Harry said, "That's the reason we need a muggle like you. We need someone who knows how to get in and out of places that have electricity without being caught, without using magic."

"So why not use someone more experienced than me?" Alex asked Seamus. He wondered how much Harry knew of Seamus' current job.

"That's another problem," Seamus grimaced. "Some employees from The Bank are in on the other side, and we can't tip any of them off. I knew you were safe, because, well," he gestured vaguely towards Alex apologetically. "You don't have any contact with the Bank anymore."

"Do you think you can do it, then?" asked Harry.

Alex smiled flatly. "You haven't exactly told me what 'it' is."

Seamus leaned back. "We, uh, we need to get an object."

Refusing to break the silence, Alex took another sip of his tea.

"Er, a flag. Well, it'll look like a flag, but it's not just _a _flag. If you see what I mean."

Alex didn't, not really, but he decided to go along. "Is there any security? Where _is_ the flag?"

"It's in the Magdalen College Chapel," Harry said.

Alex felt his mouth drop open. There were congregations there every day of the week, not to mention other activities, like rehearsals for the choir. Sure, the public were allowed in for general visiting, but there was no way he could do anything remotely suspicious with all the scrutiny.

"Underneath," said Seamus. "It's in a cavern underneath. Some of the SAS have been stationed to guard it at all hours, and electronic surveillance has been erected all around, to act as magic detectors."

This was an impossible task, thought Alex, and he said as much.

"Not _impossible,_" Harry said. "Merely… difficult. I have full faith in you."

"We've only just met."

"Kiddo," Seamus said, eyes twinkling. "We will be there to help you every step of the way. I can provide you with all the gadgets you could expect on a normal mission, plus you'll have a slew of our lot as advisors. _Your _job is merely to get in there, and grab the flag."

Alex didn't miss the glance Seamus and Harry shared. "Alright," he said after some consideration, "I'll do it."

Seamus grinned at him. "Good boy. Now, do you have any pressing engagements this evening?"

"We're beginning today?" Harry rose his eyebrows.

"Sure, why not?" Seamus looked to Alex, who shrugged.

"I'll just contact the others, then, get them ready," said Harry. "Is six o'clock too late for you to make your entrance?"

Alex looked at the clock. It was a quarter-to-six.

"No, that's great," said Seamus.

And then Harry popped out just as immediately as he'd appeared.

"Right, boyo," Seamus rubbed his hands together. "I'll give you the down-low: you already know Harry. He's our leader, but more out of force of habit than any real skills –" he smirked – "Hermione is our real leader; you'll recognise her by the bushy hair and bossiness… Who else? Ron: he's the tactical thinker and Neville for the resources." Seamus rubbed his chin. "They're the main ones. There's Lavender Brown, too, and Padma Patil…"

Alex interrupted him. "Sorry Seamus, but unless this is integral to my mission, I'd really rather being introduced when I've got their faces to remember."

"Understood. Do you have any questions, then?"

Alex considered. "Are you the magical army? The police? Why are _you_ doing this?"

"Only Harry and Ron are aurors – that's our police; we don't have a military force." He paused. "Actually, that's a good question. I'd say it's because we're the representatives of our world for liaising with the m- non-magical world."

"M-what?"

"Muggle. Non-magical."

"So, you're like a unit that deals with anything magical connected to the non-magical – muggle - world?"

"Something like that." Seamus avoided his gaze.

A few months ago, Alex wouldn't have bothered, but this whole situation piqued his curiosity. "What has stealing a flag got to do with any of that?"

"It's not stealing! And it's not just a flag."

"What is it, then? Why does the magical world want it?"

Chuckling slightly, Seamus shot him a grin. "I can see why they made you a spy, Mr Curious." He sighed. "Let's just say the flag is an important magical artefact. We don't want it getting in the wrong magical hands, and we don't want the muggles to have it either."

"Why not? Is it dangerous?"

"No, it's… Well, yes. Yes, it's dangerous."

"How?"

"It's hard to explain."

Alex raised his eyebrows and watched as Seamus shifted in his seat, though his mouth remained stubbornly shut. He decided to let it go. For now. This precarious friendship was worth more than his desire to satisfy his curiosity. In time, he might get to know this Smithers as well as he'd felt he'd known the old one, but until then, he'd treat him as he would any colleague. Respectful, amicable, but distant. "So, do I need to bring anything special tonight?" he said finally.

"Nah, you're fine." Suddenly, Seamus reached out an arm and ruffled Alex's hair. "You're a good kid. Thanks for agreeing to this despite the lack of warning."

Alex smiled politely.

Seamus withdrew his hand and then glanced at the clock on the wall. "Is that the time?"

Alex followed his gaze. Six o'clock already.

"Come on, my boy," he held out his arm. "Grab on. Tightly."

As Alex did as bid, he felt a huge spasm that seemed to come from his abdominal organs and lurched forwards as the world condensed around him. It was like rushing to the bottom of the ocean head-first.

He stumbled as they landed, and only Seamus' bracing of his arm kept Alex upright. By the time Alex had stopped his head from spinning and was able to stand upright, a few seconds had passed and everyone in the room had noticed him. He stiffened under their combined gazes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," came a voice from the side. "How rude of us! I'm Hermione." She held out her hand. Though her hair was thick, she looked as though she'd never had a hair out of place in her life – the kind of person who'd never slept in late.

"Nice to meet you," Alex murmured, taking in her smiling face and all the other faces behind her.

"…And this is Ron, and you've already met Harry…" The bespectacled man waved his hand languidly from where he lounged in the corner.

"I'm Lavender," enthused a flash of pinkness.

Alex blinked as the proffered hand drew him into a hug. A very warm hug. With bounteous assets. He flushed further.

"Honestly, don't smother the poor boy," Hermione reprimanded. The pink warmth drew back from him with a giggle and a waft of perfume. Alex managed to catch a glimpse of a stunning face before another hand was thrust towards him.

"Finch-Fletchley. Lawyer."

Alex shook the hand in bemusement.

Seamus pushed in front of Alex. "Alright, that's enough," he announced. "Let's get down to business." In a flurry of organised chaos, all were seated in seconds. Alex was manoeuvred into a seat near the door, beside Seamus.

"What's first on the agenda?" someone said.

Everyone looked towards Hermione. She smiled, and clasped her hands. "Tonight isn't a general meeting, so I thought we could elucidate our progress in the mission for Alex. We can introduce ourselves _properly _and give him an overview of what we need from him."

There were nods around the table. Hermione looked towards Alex, and he inclined his head in agreement.

"I'll start, then. Hello, I'm Hermione. I'm muggleborn – that is, born to two non-magical people, but I work in the ministry – just general jobs, really. I'm the main organiser for this mission."

"Ron, pureblood, auror, strategist."

After Ron came Harry, then Neville (teacher), Lavender (a fashion designer), and Seamus. There was a pause when they got to Alex. He cleared his throat. "Alex, muggle, student." They didn't need to know his full qualifications in MI6.

Then was Justin Finch-Fletchley, the lawyer, and Padma, who said she was a Healer. Hermione explained that they'd been classmates. "We were in a club in our later years, so when I got the call for the mission, these were the first people I thought of." She smiled around at them. "Of course, there were a few others, but I wanted a balanced, relevant crew."

"You succeeded," Ron assured her. Alex noted his adoring smile and her warm, flushed response. There was what looked like a smudge of purple playdough on Ron's collar. A couple, then, with a young child.

"Thanks, dear. Now, why don't you tell Alex our current position?"

Obediently, Ron leaned towards Alex and folded his arms on the table. "Harry told me you know the location, and the general gist of our problem."

"Magdalen College Chapel, you need to grab a flag, but there's electronic surveillance."

"Yep. Someone told the muggles that magic screws up electronics, so they covered the place. Any weird things happen, they'll move the flag."

"Can't you just… teleport in and grab the flag before they have a chance to act?"

"Teleport?"

"Apparate," said Padma. "And no, we can't. Apparition only works for places you've been to, or that you can see."

"But how did Harry get into my house, then?"

"You can also apparate following a patronus," Seamus explained. "The silver glowing animal you saw."

"And patroni can only lead people to the caster," Hermione concluded. The fox. Alex wondered if it was always a fox. Perhaps different animals performed different tasks.

"We're not as good at getting into places without magic as Seamus says _you_ are," Ron said gravely.

That was too perfect. Almost as perfect as the reasons the Bank had given for Alex's missions. "Do you know what other security there is?" he asked wearily.

"Not really." Hermione was apologetic. "We never got past the guard on the door to go underground."

He'd have to do everything himself. Scouting, investigation, and the actual theft. Alex sighed.

"We're all be here for you," Ron pointed out. "Other than the extraction itself, we can give you any resources you want."

"What can you give me, then?"

Seamus smiled. "You know what I can do," he said. "My gadgets are designed to work without magic."

"I've got access to the entire Hogwarts library, plus the Hogwarts gardens, for potions," Neville said.

"Hogwarts?"

"Our previous school," explained Padma. "_Some _potions won't emit any magic. For myself, I'm a healer, as I've already said."

"What can potions do?"

"Oh, anything at all!" Neville gushed, before blushing slightly. "Well, lots of things. It's simply a matter of asking."

Alex looked to Finch-Fletchley. "I'm just to ensure the muggle Government won't retaliate against the Ministry of Magic, should anything go awry," he said.

Lavender said she'd give a practical demonstration of what she could do. She waved her wand around her face, and as Alex watched, lines began to appear over her face. When she had stopped changing, he realised the lines were scars, around her cheek, through her nose and lips, making her eye sag. Half her ear was torn off, and as far as Alex could see, the scars continued down her neck, hidden by her frilly collar.

She smiled sadly at him, and Alex tried to stop staring so obviously. "Wolf attack," she said. "I've studied human transfiguration – I'll be able to make undetectable changes to disguise you, and the changes will be permanent until I reverse them. Glamours emit magic that can be detected."

Alex noticed Seamus reach out to hold her hand. Interesting.

"Well, that's all of us," Hermione declared with false lightness.

Shattering the moment, an old, wooden clock in the corner called out, "Dinnertime!" Alex just managed not to flinch. He glanced at the clock: seven o'clock. "I should get going," he said. "I need to prepare dinner…"

"Don't worry about that," Ron said. "My mum gave us too much food, so we brought it for the meeting. If you don't mind roast beef..?"

"That's fine," Alex acquiesced after a moment. "If it's not too much of an imposition…"

"Nonsense," Seamus clapped Alex on the back. "Molly always provides food for our meetings. I tell you what; you haven't tasted real food until you've been fed by Molly!"

He still had the same enthusiasm for food as he'd shown in his fat suit, but now the persona was at odds with his slim, muscular build.

Harry and Hermione had gone to the kitchen to get the food, but now they returned. They waved their wands over the food, and it began to steam.

Alex felt his mouth water as he took in the warm, meaty aroma, rounded off with buttered vegetables, and countered by a sweet, vinegary gravy. He joined in with the others in passing around plates, glasses and cutlery. Ron carved the beef with his wand, and Padma poured the drinks with hers: a smooth, orange-coloured juice that smelled of pumpkin and caramel.

For a while, there was no talking as everyone dug in. Alex couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd had a meal that wasn't ready-made with sauce from a jar, or takeaway. Even when he'd been living with Jack, she hadn't cooked like this; life was for more things than cooking anything that took longer than ten minutes, was what she used to say. But it reminded him of the Christmas dinners he used to have with Jack and Ian at the pub.

When the meal was finished, Seamus showed Alex to the door. "I'll give you the actual address of this house, so you can come here any time you want to message us. We've packed up all the dangerous items, so you can go anywhere in the house without worrying. If you want to contact us, just use the floo –"

"The floo?"

"There's a pot of floo powder beside the fireplace; it's green. Through the powder into the fire, and call the name of whoever you want, then stick your head in. It's perfectly safe," he said to Alex's astonished face.

"Right."

"Now, we have a timeframe of a few weeks, so don't feel you have to rush anything, but we'd appreciate it if you didn't dawdle," Seamus said as they stood outside in the garden.

Alex nodded. "Where are we?" he said.

"Islington. Here –" he handed Alex a scrap of paper. "You have to keep this somewhere safe. You need the paper to remember where the house is – it's a remnant of the war," he explained when Alex quirked his brow. Curiouser and curiouser.

He looked at the scrap of paper:

_12 Grimmauld Place_

When Alex looked up, Seamus was gone, leaving Alex with his hands in his pockets, staring at the dim street. He glanced at his watch: eight o'clock. Usually he got to bed by about ten, so that left enough time for him to get home without transport – if he jogged.

It would have been faster if he'd had his bike – which was stolen, anyway, he remembered. Besides, the exercise would do him good while he arranged his thoughts in regards to the revelations of the day.

Contemplating the mysteries of life, and the merging of two shadowy worlds, Alex set off.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**AN: To 'Guest', who thought Ginny and Luna should be there – I considered them :) and they **_**were **_**there in my first draft, but the number of people was getting too big and I couldn't think of a proper reason they should be there (Ginny, a quidditch player, and Luna, a magizoologist…) Plus, I wanted people from the DA who were in different houses, and at least a couple muggleborns. **

**Thanks for the reviews! :D**

**P.S. SpyFest's weekly prompt challenge will be conducted again this year, in July. In the meantime, the June prompt has been posted on the forum _Revival_. **

* * *

Alex still went to school the next day. He woke up at the usual time, ate the usual cold breakfast and got dressed as usual in his school uniform. He hadn't gotten around to desecrating his uniform yet, as per the custom for all students approaching the end of their compulsory schooling – mostly because Tom wasn't there to laugh at his attempt. But it didn't matter anymore. He locked up the house and went to the shed to fetch his bike… His bike – he'd forgotten it had been stolen. With the bike, he'd have gotten to school exactly on time, having refined his route perfectly in the six years he'd been cycling to school – in the two years since Smithers had given him the secretly upgraded mountain bike. But, no matter. No-one would care anyway; he'd be gone from the school in a week.

His prediction was correct; when he entered the classroom halfway through the first lesson, nobody looked up. There was no whispering of criminal connections or drugs. Classes changed every year, and these students in his class hadn't been his classmates when he was fourteen. They didn't know his connection with the labs blown up by Julius, with the sniper that had ultimately made Tom leave. Their attention was taken by the movie the teacher had set as a time-wasting activity before they were legally allowed to leave school.

Alex settled at his desk and let his awareness seep away.

The movie was Fermat's Room, because Alex's teacher taught maths. Abstracted, Alex was disappointed the movie didn't have magic; he wanted something relevant to what he was going through – weren't movies meant to convey allegories? He scoffed inwardly, remembering back to when he was fourteen, hearing his English teacher discussing the themes of Hamlet as applied to real life… like step-parents, and reality-television metadramas. They skirted around the _real _topics in Hamlet – the _main message_ of the most famous soliloquy in the play – as if it couldn't possibly be resonating with any of the students, or that they wouldn't be able to grasp such a concept.

Already regretting his decision to go to school, Alex left as soon as the lesson ended. Going back to his home was like admitting defeat, like he wasn't fit for society. He hadn't skived before, and it would be strange sitting at home on a weekday. So it wasn't surprising that on the way home, Alex found himself heading towards the centre of London.

As he was walking, there was a niggling sensation that something wasn't normal. Ian and Alex's missions had never taken him to New York, but he'd seen videos and heard stories about it – the streets were scattered with people in strange clothes, Broadway or not, and everyone had some sort of obscure lingo that they used with their select peers. That was what the streets felt like, now. London felt like New York. Smithers' words came back to him: S_omething incongruous, something that doesn't quite match... Really odd._ There were people in the street wearing nightclothes with swimming costumes and gumboots, looking furtively about and waving sticks – wands… Sometimes they popped into existence in alleyways where, if Alex wasn't looking carefully, they would go unnoticed. How had he _not _noticed? Though he didn't like to admit his conceit, Alex usually prided himself on his hyper-awareness. To know that a whole other world existed, right in front of him…

The public swarmed around the strange people, eyes averted to the far distance as was customary in any big city. But someone else noticed the magicians: A homeless girl on the footpath held her hat out to everyone who passed; magical and 'muggle' alike. She was ignored even more; _everyone_, not just muggles or magicals ignored her, except for a few who muttered 'dirty bitch' and what sounded like 'squid'.

Swayed by some sense of kinship, Alex moved towards her but as he got closer, she shot out her hand and grabbed his ankle. He choked back a yell and tried to jerk his ankle out of her grip.

"_Shh," _she said, "I'm not going to hurt you. I just have to deliver a message to you."

Alex stared at her, incredulous.

She rolled her eyes. "There's a pub at Charing Cross Road known for its 'most excellent and delicious luncheon'. Go – despite appearances, it's open and clean. And don't worry about the donations; I'm giving it all to charity."

It was so strange, Alex wondered whether she was magical. And then he wondered whether he should follow her directive.

Other than paranoia, there was nothing stopping him from going. He decided that he'd keep aware, and if something bad _did _happen, he'd notice it, or escape. Either way, he'd deal. If nothing went wrong, then all the better.

He turned around and walked in the direction of Charing Cross Road.

As the girl had implied, the pub – The Leaky Cauldron, said its sign – had the welcoming atmosphere of a dog's arse. The people entering the pub, however, looked respectable enough. They were also dressed in the strange apparel as the people Alex had noticed earlier. They looked… magical, Alex was beginning to realise. They looked _more_.

Summoning an air of confidence and arrogance, Alex entered the Leaky Cauldron.

Although the windows had been blacked out from grime on the outside, they were completely transparent on the inside. Flowers in vases had been placed on tables, and the golden light brought a warm olden-timey feeling to the place.

A young woman at the counter smiled hello. "I haven't seen you here before," she said.

Alex smiled back. "I've never been here before. I'm meeting someone." The Leaky Cauldron mustn't have had many customers if the woman could remember everyone who came in. He looked around. In a corner that remained shadowed despite the incandescent lighting was Crawley. Huh. First Smithers, and now Crawley. Alex wondered how many more magical people had infiltrated MI6 and other intelligence agencies.

Alex walked over to the man. "Did you send a message to me?" he said.

Crawley looked up, and gestured at a seat across from him. "I did," he said, but nothing more.

"So what did you want me for?" Alex shifted around, making himself comfortable on the hard wooden chair. It was almost like he was back working for MI6, with Crawley there to fetch him. Despite Alex's mixed feelings about the agency, he nevertheless couldn't muster any sort of blame for the man. He had always been perfectly courteous, and was just doing his job, after all.

Across from Alex, Crawley also shifted.

"Is it about the flag?" Alex prompted.

The man frowned. "How do you know… Never mind that. It's not to do with any sort of flag," he said. "Actually, it's about your education."

"My education?" Alex was incredulous.

The frown that Crawley made was small and uncomfortable. "Yes. You see, your uncle – before he died – he made certain stipulations."

"Ian made stipulations to _you _about my education?"

"To the Bank. There's a place waiting for you at Hills Road Sixth Form."

Alex felt a flutter, a thump. He didn't know what he had been expecting – to drop out of school, to continue at Brooklands until he was eighteen? For Ian to still be controlling his life beyond the grave was unsettling.

"You don't have to go, of course," continued the man, oblivious to Alex's sudden panic. "You're your own man, now; you're able to decide what you think will be best for you. _I _went there, you know," he said. "To Hills Road. Their graduate statistics are very good."

Alex choked down a laugh at the absurdity of a school-age Crawley. "And after that? Has anything in university been organised for me?"

Crawley's gaze stopped flickering around, and settled on Alex. "If you are interested, the Bank would be more than delighted to offer some sort of scholarship – as thanks, and to perhaps give you a path that would allow you to re-enter this world, should you so wish." He cleared his throat. "You did well when you worked for us. But I have a feeling you wouldn't take it."

"You're right," Alex said, though he himself wasn't so sure. "I'll get back to you on the Hills Road thing," he said, rising. "It's you I have to talk when I make my decision, yeah?"

Crawley nodded. "I'm here every day," he said. "I have business here, but you wouldn't be interrupting much."

Strange. But Alex decided not to dwell on it. He wasn't a spy anymore. There was no point nosing into everything when that was what had got him into trouble in the first place. Still, he'd noticed the man's slip earlier, about the flag – and surely, Smithers would have told Crawley he was involving Alex, since they were on the same sides. For that matter, he should have told Alex about Crawley… Forcibly switching his mind off the topic, Alex left the pub.

Stepping out into the unexpectedly-cold air, Alex squinted against the wind and in doing so, collided with someone coming the other way. A familiar scent wafted his way.

He looked up. "Lavender!"

Lavender Brown peered at him. "Alex! What are you doing here?" She shook her head. "Never mind that – you can probably get past the wards now that you know about magic… You're just the person I was looking for!"

_I was?_ Alex was about to ask, but already Lavender had resumed her chatter.

"I mean, not at this very moment, but it certainly _is _very serendipitous for me to have bumped into you!" She grabbed his arm with a steel grip completely opposite to the softness of the rest of her, and pulled him back into the Leaky Cauldron.

Alex glanced at Crawley, but the man was engrossed in a moving newspaper and didn't notice Alex and Lavender.

"Hello, Hannah," Lavender was busy saying to the woman at the counter. "I've just spoken to Neville – he'll be a bit late for dinner tonight."

Hannah laughed. "As long as he gets here, the timing doesn't matter."

To Alex, Lavender said, "This is Hannah, by the way – née Abbott. She's Neville's wife."

"And don't I remind him every day!" said Hannah. "Just passing through, then?"

Lavender nodded. "Thanks for the brew – it went down _very_ well at my press release."

Hannah nodded. "Raspberry and pine gillywater, wasn't it?"

"The very same," said Lavender, and as quickly as she had come in, she manoeuvred Alex through a back door he hadn't noticed.

Alex stared at the brick wall in front of him, but Lavender, in a practiced movement, tapped a sequence of bricks. It was almost too fast for Alex to catch, but he felt he could make an educated guess if he had to replicate the pattern. If he had a wand…

The bricks started to rotate and fold out of existence, silencing Alex's thoughts. Now _this_ was magic. Eagerly, he looked beyond the brick wall to the alleyway which had opened up, but was met with a disappointing view of a generic street, like he could find in almost any area of London.

Lavender was looking at him in expectation. Alex looked back at her. Furrowing her brow, Lavender opened her mouth, and then her expression eased and her brows raised. "Oh, I forgot – you won't be able to see…" the corners of her mouth turned down. "I'm afraid what you're seeing is some sort of glamour meant to deter mug – people like you."

"People without magic, you mean?" asked Alex, oddly hurt.

She shrugged. "Well, yes. There was a bit of a catastrophe some years ago –"

Alex wondered if this was connected with the liquidising bridges Smithers had talked about.

"And some of the barriers were broken. We had to protect our secrets while we rebuilt them…" She brightened. "But that's all going to change, soon –"

"What do you mean?" said Alex.

Suddenly, she wouldn't meet his gaze. "Er, well, that is to say, I'll give you something so you can see everything. Properly."

Alex wasn't _that_ credulous, but he hadn't known Lavender that long – only a few hours, really – and he wasn't going to push the matter. Besides, it was her world that needed him, not his.

Oblivious – or perhaps just pretending to be – to Alex's suspicion, Lavender escorted him past the easily-forgettable brick walls and street lamps. When it felt like the street was never going to end, she pulled him to the side, into an even narrower laneway. This laneway opened into a small, cobblestone courtyard, manned on all four sides by, yes, tall brick buildings. Here, the light seemed a permanent dusk. He turned around to Lavender.

She was gone.

"Lavender?" Alex walked around the courtyard. Damnit. Where had she gone? He felt a very strong instinct to leave the place. There was something wrong.

A waft of scent gave him only a moment's warning before Lavender appeared again, and grabbed his arm. Strangely, the feeling of oppression left and Alex felt safe again.

"I forgot about those wards," Lavender was muttering. "I really should get you something… Come on, then," she said impatiently, and she showed him the door she'd entered when he had thought she'd disappeared. Alex wondered how he hadn't noticed it. He realised knew the answer: magic.

The inside of the shop was a cross between a burlesque dressing room and the chambers of someone such as Marie Antoinette, if such a thing could exist. Lavender's signature scent was much stronger here, and now in a greater concentration, raspberry and pine tickled his nose.

"Sit anywhere," Lavender said, busying herself with the fabrics that hung around the shop. "Have you thought of any plan, yet?"

Alex looked around, and spotted only chintz stools. He plopped himself gingerly down on one near the door. "Uh, not really…"

Lavender made a sound of frustration. "We've been trying to get this for months! You were our last resort, and you haven't even given us any thought."

He thought she was being a bit unreasonable, and tried to placate her. "Well, that is to say, I've got nothing concrete yet." A flash of inspiration caught him, from the girl who had sent him to Crawley. "Actually, you could probably help with my plan."

"What's that, then?" Lavender mumbled around a bunch of pins in her mouth.

"You can do disguises, right?"

"Mhm."

"Well, I noticed that people rarely notice, uh, homeless people. And lots of troubled youth go to the church."

"What's that go to do with anything?"

"Well, I could sneak in as a homeless person, maybe stay the night there and watch the security guards. Then I could maybe distract them or get them to take pity on me so I can sneak in somehow." Alex was warming to this idea. "If I can get close enough, maybe I can knock the guards out – especially if they're expecting magical attacks."

"And you want me to disguise you?" Lavender's voice had a tinge of curiosity.

"If you wouldn't mind," Alex said.

Lavender looked around her shop. "Well, I've nothing here that could help you. Unless you'd like lilac lace and glitter…"

Alex laughed.

"Just stay here," she said determinedly. "This idea of yours has merit – I'll just go and fetch some stuff from home –" And this time, she really did disappear. With a loud _crack_.

While Lavender was gone, Alex took the opportunity to snoop around her shop. This was his first magical shop, after all, and he wondered what sort of interesting things he could find.

Unfortunately, Lavender had been telling the truth about her shop. Aside from a locker register, there were only the chintz stools, and racks and racks of lace, glitter and cloths. Some of the cloth had textures and colours Alex had never seen, and some of it literally defied gravity, but apart from that, it was mostly disappointing.

Before long, however, Lavender returned with a pop.

"Here," she said. "Grime collected under the light of a crescent moon – it'll stick better, and it won't reflect the light to much – and eau de toilette – the porcelain throne kind. Rub them on yourself."

"Wait, we're doing this tonight?" Alex caught the tins Lavender threw to him out of reflex.

"Are you free?"

He nodded.

"No time like the present, then," came the cheerful reply.

Alex tried not to grimace too much as he followed her instructions and scooped out some of the grime. It was certainly very… grimy, and the odour that rose from the other tin mixed with the raspberry-pine scent and made it smell like a very pungent expulsion from the rear.

"Don't put too much," said Lavender, rummaging in a box. "Realism, not repulsion."

Alex tentatively dabbed some scent on. A mild scent of putrescent garbage settled around him. He screwed the lid back on.

"Here, catch," Lavender said, tossing something small and billowy at him.

He caught it. It was a wig.

Alex shook the brown wig out. "How do I put it on?" he said, wondering why he couldn't just go with his normal hair.

"Here, I'll do it," said Lavender, coming over to him. "I'll put some of the grime in it – you don't want your own hair getting dirty, do you?" So that was why. "Do you think you'll need anything else?"

"Apart from clothes other than my school uniform?"

"Oh!" Lavender paused in her playing with the hair. "I completely forgot." With a twitch of her wand completely unlike Cinderella's fairy godmother, she switched Alex's clothes to some baggy, holey pants and t-shirts. "You'd wear several layers at once, right? To keep yourself warm?"

Having done so in a particularly cold Duke of Edinburgh expedition, Alex could confirm that he would. Then something caught his eye. "Hold on," he said, "That wig's a bit long. I mean, of course it'd grow longer than normal, but down to my back?"

Lavender gave a nervous giggle. "Well, I don't really have non-feminine wigs just _lying_ around," she said. "The wig is spelled against changes – too many summoning charms and pranks, you know – glamours would disrupt the electronics, and I don't think we have polyjuice on hand. You can start with reconnaissance, and if an opportunity arises then take it, but don't worry about it. I can get you polyjuice tomorrow." She paused. "Besides, wouldn't the guards take greater pity on a girl?"

The idea made Alex uncomfortable, but he couldn't really say anything against it when he himself had used his enemies' natural sympathy for children in his own missions.

"There," said Lavender. "All done." She gave him an old, handheld mirror.

"Perfectly fabulous, darling," the mirror said.

Alex gaped, both in surprise from the mirror's voice and his own new looks.

"Thank you," said Lavender primly. "I dotry. Now, just remember to speak a bit higher and with more intonation, and you'll be right."

He sure hoped so.

* * *

**AN: Bit of an action-less chapter, but the action should pick up soon! **


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

**AN: Please note that the weekly SpyFest prompt competition is commencing this July, folks :D I'd be delighted if y'all could participate!**

* * *

Ian hadn't been a religious man, but one Christmas he'd taken Alex to a small church on a hill in Italy. The entire service was in Italian – before Alex became fluent, but the vibrant atmosphere that pervaded the night left him with a lasting memory. Ian, of course, had seemed to be washed of whatever had haunted him, and returned to life as 'normal' the next day.

The chapel in Oxford was so much more magnificent and yet subdued compared to the small, lively Italian church, though both hummed with a sense of reverence. Parishioners lingered in pews or knelt before the prayer candles near the door. Outside the door to the vestry, close to the altar, a man stood clothed in practical, tough clothing. While his posture was ostensibly relaxed, the tension in his jaw and his quick, darting eyes betrayed him.

Alex tried to get a better look at the man – he had to be a soldier; no-one else could stand like that – while bowing his head towards the altar, but saw nothing more of note. What had he expected? A big red sign on the back of the man's neck saying 'soldier'? Head still bowed, Alex retreated to one of the pews in the middle of the church.

He had no plan. But he felt as though if he left now, Lavender would have gone to all this effort of dressing him up for naught. Anyway, there was nothing more for him to do at home; he'd only be putting this off to tomorrow. Might as well get it done tonight, when he was all dolled up. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind.

Something in the peace and dim lighting of the chapel relaxed Alex so that he drifted into a self-aware half-sleep. He could feel the sturdy wood underneath him, the strain on his slouching back. He could hear the many footsteps as gradually, the people in the chapel began to leave, and imagined even the rustle to his left as the soldier. It was like meditation, though without a preppy-voiced narrator. It was like lying in bed on the nights Ian was expected to arrive back.

Alex opened his eyes.

It was completely dark, now, except for the constant dim glow of a few lights in the chapel. The soldier still stood outside the vestry, and Alex wondered why nobody had told him to move. Maybe the priests were in cahoots with the soldiers. For that matter, why was the flag-object-thing in a church? Maybe it was an underground witch-hunter weapon.

Or maybe he was just fantasising. He snorted. Fantasising about magic, but magic wasn't the fantasy.

Movement to Alex's left caught his eye. The soldier was staring at him. He must have heard Alex's snort. The same reckless abandon that had made Alex conceive this disguise for Lavender gripped him now, and he stared straight at the soldier.

That was a bad idea. The soldier muttered something, too quiet for Alex to hear, and another soldier came in from the front doors. In the dim lighting, it was difficult to see the men's faces – a good thing, it turned out, because the second soldier came up to him.

Alex was amazed that the disguise was working. Very deep down, a small part of him felt guilty for this flippancy, but the depression he'd felt for weeks – months – had finally given way to hysteria. He felt like giggling, and coughed to cover it up.

"Miss, are you okay?"

An idea struck Alex. He coughed again, and continued to cough hoarsely and then took a few, wheezing breaths. Dramatically, he cut one of those breaths off in the middle, and slumped to the side and off the pew before laying very still.

The sound of the soldier's footsteps on carpet could only have been heard in an empty chapel. When the man had moved close enough, Alex did as the girl on the streets had done to him, and grabbed an approaching ankle, yanking it sharply towards himself. Surprised but well-trained, the soldier shifted all his weight to that one ankle, steadying it, and aimed a kick with his other foot at Alex's wrist.

But Alex had surged to his feet, and hurled his weight towards the man's chest. Luckily, he had used enough force, and the two of them went toppling to the ground. He pressed his thumbs just under the Adam's apple of the man's throat, using gravity to increase the pressure. He felt the heaving of the man's chest, struggling to find air without pressing against Alex's thumbs further.

A heavy weight crashed into Alex's head, blackening his vision as he was ripped backwards. The soldier holding Alex threw him to the floor. Alex turned his head quickly to avoid his nose being smashed, but he felt the bone in his cheek hit the side of the pew on the way down, with a flash of blinding pain.

Before the soldier could restrict his arm movement, Alex brought his hands to either side of his head, tucked his legs in, and rolled forward. He stood up and twisted in the narrow space, kicking the chest of the soldier who had attacked him. The other soldier stumbled backwards as he caught his partner.

Alex shuffled backwards to give himself more room. He stepped up onto the seat and then the back of a pew. Quickly but carefully, he walked along the backs of the pews to the front of the church. Once there, he jumped down and placed his back to the altar.

It was lucky the pews were so wide. While they were sturdy enough to hold Alex's weight without tipping, the soldiers weren't risking it, and had to run all along to the ends, giving Alex time to look around. Most parishioners had exited the moment the fight had broken out, but some remained with open mouths, frozen in place. There were two more plainclothes soldiers, he saw, guarding the front doors and the door to the vestry.

With a quick apology to any and all religious deities, Alex climbed up onto the altar.

The two soldiers circled below him like wolves. Alex easily took out the first one that tried to climb to him with a few kicks to his head that sent him reeling away clutching his bloodied face before collapsing.

The next soldier waited for the soldier guarding the front doors to join him as Alex pivoted in the middle of the holy table. They attacked simultaneously, reaching for his legs. He avoided one but not the other, and so, shifting weight to that foot, aimed a too-hasty kick at the soldier's face. The soldier was quick to dodge, and his grip tightened as he wrenched Alex off-balance.

Alex toppled sideways. He managed to catch himself with his arms, but as he did so, he felt a shooting pain up his left forearm just like when he broke it in football. Relaxing completely, Alex made himself a deadweight and curled into a ball to roll off the altar, ignoring the pain. The soldiers, struggling with his momentum, let go of his ankles. With that small opportunity, Alex uncurled and sprang forwards. He avoided the desperate lunge of a soldier and placed his back to the wall beside the vestry.

Frantically striking out, Alex aimed his right shoulder low, at the torso of a soldier, keeping his left arm tucked to his chest and trying not to jostle it too much. Alex's hit must have got the solar plexus, because the soldier froze and stopped breathing for a few seconds – long enough for Alex to follow up the attack with a clumsy sideswipe to the jaw, knocking the man out.

That left the soldier attacking Alex, and the one guarding the vestry. That soldier still had yet to move, supporting his suspicion that whatever Seamus' crew wanted was behind there. An uppercut he hurriedly dodged broke through his train of thought. It was followed by a savage kick that knocked him onto his back, driving the breath out of him. Instinctively, he rolled sideways to avoid another attack.

Though his eyes stung with sweat, and his left forearm still throbbed with a burning promise of future hurt, Alex heaved himself to his feet and shuffled backwards into a guard position. With his right arm, he blocked a few tentative jabs from the soldier, and then threw one of his own. And missed.

The soldier he was fighting didn't seem exhausted at all.

Sluggish reactions caused Alex to catch the next attack from the soldier on his jaw. He felt his teeth crack together, but luckily not hard enough to break them. Cursing inwardly, he ducked and rolled forwards, feeling with apprehension the soldier's kick skim his hair. He stood up and somehow – magically – the soldier, surprised by Alex's movement towards him, had let down his guard for a split millisecond. Alex drove the heel of his palm into the soldier's nose, driving it upwards. The man collapsed. Alex sucked in a breath.

He turned to stare at the last soldier, wondering how long he could go on.

The soldier began walking towards Alex. Panting heavily, Alex moved backwards until he hit the wall, and then, feeling behind him, he continued to move sideways, along the wall, away from the soldier. He couldn't keep running away forever. He knew that, the soldier knew that. And eventually, they were at the church entrance, and the soldier was less than two metres away.

Alex blinked, and the man's hands were around his throat.

Some deep instinct – it wasn't a move Alex had learnt in the dojo – took over his body. He brought his hands up, and _pushed_ the man's wrists away from his throat, ignoring the pain from his broken left arm, and his choking panic. Simultaneously, he brought his leg up to kick the man in the groin. Faintly, a memory surfaced – Ian, playing at wrestling when Jack was out. _"If ever someone is choking you, this is how you stop them." _Ian's warm, rough hands around his throat, and then, the gasping of the man beneath him. Alex crouched down over the curled-up soldier, straddling him, and wrapped the man in a bear hug with his arms and legs pinned immobile. Just like before, he pressed his thumbs into the man's throat.

"Tell me how to get inside," Alex demanded.

"You just go inside the vestry," the man gasped. "I'll take you inside, myself! _Jesus Christ!_"

"How do I know you won't trick me?" said Alex.

"This is too far! Don't kill me!"

Alex paused. He lessened the pressure a little. "I _will _kill you if you disobey."

"Jesus Christ," said the man again. "Who the fuck let you play?!"

Alex frowned. "Just take me inside."

The man growled and bucked to no avail. "Remember," Alex said, "I have magic. Just because I can't use it actively without setting off whatever defences you have, I can channel my internal magic to destroy your body from the inside, like an electric current. It won't leak out, so your friends won't notice." He wondered if that was true, or if some things were just impossible, whether you had magic or not.

"Let me up and I'll take you," snapped the man, bucking again, and Alex stood up quickly.

"Go on," he said. "I'll be right behind." Part of him wondered why the soldier was acquiescing so easily, but he shook off that suspicion. He was a spy no longer, and he didn't really care. He was working on all the evidence he had and if things went wrong, they went wrong.

The soldier brought him into the vestry – without even a key! – and closed the door. He looked at Alex. "The flag is behind the cupboard," he said, gesturing at a heavy wooden cupboard with intricate engravings of flowers and fruit. "You have to help me move it."

Alex frowned, but he walked over to the cupboard and stood opposite the soldier. "Okay," he said, "let's move it, then."

The soldier was silent.

A millisecond was all the warning Alex had before the soldier had shoved the cupboard at him, throwing him against the stone wall. Alex felt his head crack and he went limp from the shock. The man placed a large hand around his throat.

"You can't escape," said the soldier. "I've got you." He was right. The man was much heavier than Alex, and was using his knees to pin Alex's arms to his torso. "Do you submit?"

Alex nodded as much as he could with his neck restricted.

The soldier relaxed his grip a little, and half stood as he reached behind himself with his other hand. Alex caught a glimpse of something gleaming black, like a gun.

Alex took advantage of the reprieve to bring his right arm up, press his thumb in the soft flesh under the soldier's chin, pushing his head away, and then drew his legs around to grab the man around the throat and reverse their positions.

The soldier punched his solar plexus before Alex could restrain him, then pushed him off and stood up. Alex reeled backwards until he hit the wall.

As the soldier stumbled towards him, Alex aimed another kick at the man's crotch. He followed through as the man doubled over, and brought him to the ground again, this time facing downwards.

"_Don't try that again,"_ he growled. "I know you have magic detectors to alert your friends. You won't be able to goad me into using it. But if you continue to try my patience, then I _will _kill you, magic or not. Do you get the message? I can always find another way to get the flag. Maybe I'll kill your friends when they come out to look for you." He paused. "Clear?"

The man grunted assent.

"And you're going to move that cupboard yourself," said Alex.

"All this for a bloody flag," muttered the soldier, but he did as Alex bid.

Behind the cupboard was a stone archway, and through that, stone steps descending in an anticlockwise spiral. They went down ten, maybe twenty metres. Alex wondered how long ago the church had been built. Had these stairs hidden a priest's sanctuary when priests had been hunted? A fragment of memory appeared at the back of his mind. His history teacher… _Some churches were built way back in the twelfth century. They would have been much brighter then, without centuries of grime covering them. _His skin prickled against the dirt he had smeared on his face.

At the bottom of the stairs was a heavy wooden door. The soldier moved to open it, but Alex stopped him with a hand to his arm. "Describe the room to me," he said. "Exactly where is the 'flag'? Is there anyone guarding it?"

The soldier hesitated, but finally appeared to relent. "It's in the centre of the room. There's one guard."

"Open the door." Alex only had a split second to take in the room. The soldier had lied – of course – and there were more soldiers than one. With no more time to think, he followed through on his predetermined plan to knock the soldier out with an upwards knock to the back of his head, but he was too late. The soldier had been expecting the attack. He crashed into the room, throwing himself to the side so his fellow soldiers could attack Alex.

A shot from one of the guards missed as Alex ducked and lunged forwards at the man's knees. Behind him came the sound of another soldier's gun. The soldier he hit crashed to the floor, and Alex turned to the other two guards.

The first soldier raised his gun and fired at Alex, but Alex anticipated the shot and flinched to the side. In an instant, he regained his balance and grabbed the soldier's arm, twisting it. He held the man in front of him and rushed the other guard just as the man's gun went off. The man caught his friend, staggering under his weight.

In the meantime, the guard on the ground had got to his feet, and was aiming at Alex. He placed a foot in front of the other to steady himself, but Alex must have done some damage, because he staggered as he fired and the shot went wide. Just before Alex struck him in the head with a roundhouse kick, he seemed to submit.

Alex caught the man before he fell and spun around.

The other guard had left the first soldier slumped next to a table in the centre of the room, and had ducked behind that table. His gun pointed straight at Alex's head.

In a rush, Alex dropped the soldier he was holding, shifted his weight to his other foot, and used the momentum from his spin to leap onto the table, narrowly missing a box that lay there. He aimed his leg at the soldier's head.

And just like that, it was over. Alex had been expecting that the soldier would lie, but still – why were there only seven soldiers? Against a magical force, surely an army would be necessary. Again, he was disappointed that Seamus and his friends hadn't managed to do this job on their own.

There were other boxes in the room: one grey and rough, placed in the wall like one of the stones; a wooden box in a wooden cupboard, covered in centuries of dust. Alex took those boxes as well as the one on the table, just in case. The strange thing was, on the wall where Alex dodged the bullet was splattered with yellow paint. Now that he cast his mind back, the sound of the shot had been too quiet for a real gun. Soldiers using paint guns… Perhaps it was poisoned paint formulated against magicals.

With adrenaline still electrifying his heart, and he relished the thudding and the heat that rushed through his body and left his injuries numb. He shifted the boxes around in his arms, and, limping, left the room.

The lights in the church were brighter than the dimness of the basement, and the city lights outside even brighter. Alex hadn't noticed, but now the abundance of life thrummed through him. Here, now, the wizards and witches would not be out of place.

He caught the underground back to the city centre, grinning at the wide berth he created around him. At Charing Cross Road, he got off and made his way to the Leaky Cauldron, where he entered and walked over to the counter.

"Do you know if Lavender is still in the alley?" he asked the woman, Hannah Abbott.

She stared at him, and then started. "Oh, you're that boy who was here with her earlier. Yes, I think she is."

"You wouldn't mind calling her for me? Or opening up the alley?"

Abbott's face softened. "Oh, are you – are you a squi –" She cut herself off. "Of course I'll call her for you." A wave of her wand produced a thin wisp of silver smoke. She caught Alex staring. "My husband, Neville, has been teaching me – he learnt it in school with Harry Potter – but I haven't yet got the hang of it."

"It's very impressive," Alex said, trying not to sound sarcastic. "Thanks for helping me."

She winced. "Well, it's the least I can do, after he who…" She cleared her throat and turned to speak to the silver wisp. "Lavender, that boy—"

"Alex," he provided.

"–Alex is here. He wants to speak to you." She waved the wisp vaguely in the direction of the alley.

He smiled at her gratefully.

In a few moments, Lavender appeared in the pub with a crack. "Thanks, Hannah," she said, and turned to Alex.

He removed his wig and held it out to her.

She took it bemusedly. "You didn't have to come to report right now – you could have come to the meeting in a few days. In fact, why don't you keep the wig, since you'll need it when you go to the chapel again to get the flag?"

Alex showed her the boxes.

"Oh! Wow, well done." And then she caught sight of his face. "_Alex, _are you okay?"

Alex quirked his lips. "Do I look okay?"

She took the boxes, and frowned minutely. "_Episkey, ossicouno, tergeo,_" she said, waving her wand, and Alex gaped as the pain in his face, his left arm, his sprained ankle that he hadn't noticed, disappeared. Lavender grinned. "I got very good at healing magic in seventh year," she said, "and when I was in hospital, the Healers taught me more… So, ah, I guess that's that, then. Did Seamus say he'd pay you?"

"He didn't."

"I feel I should, though. I mean, you've been so helpful… Here," she held out a stick – like a wand, but not quite so intricately decorated. "George – that's Ron's brother – developed this prototype as part of the post-war effort. Hermione wanted to call it the _Pole for the Improvement of Squib Self-Determination, _or 'PISSD', but no-one lets her name things anymore. It emits a weak magical signal so that when you carry it, the wards will recognise you and not affect you, and you can use it for things like Diagon Alley. I was going to give it to you anywhere so you could meet me easily again to plan, but since you've got the flag so quickly…"

He felt strangely touched. "I'll see you 'round, then," he said.

She smiled.

* * *

Like gravity and matter, events around Alex had the tendency to occur in clumps. When he woke the next morning, he decided to get the school thing with Crawley over and done with. He caught a bus to Charing Cross Road, said hello to Hannah Abbott, ordered breakfast, and then looked around for Crawley.

Just like the day before, the man sat in the corner, shrouded by shadows. He looked up as Alex approached.

"I've decided," Alex said.

Crawley raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. I want to go to Hills Road."

"Any particular reason why?"

Alex shrugged. "It's prestigious, Ian wanted me to go there so it shouldn't be that shit, it might be good to start anew… Do you mind if I sit down? I've ordered breakfast."

"Not at all," Crawley shook his head. "Actually, I have found the food here not that bad. My agent – the girl who contacted you for me – is the one who told me about this place."

So maybe Crawley wasn't magical – but his agent definitely was. That left the question of what Crawley knew about the flag, if anything… Alex shook off his curiosity. He was not here as a spy.

Hannah brought Alex's breakfast, an overloaded plate with eggs, beans, sausages and toast, and Alex began to eat.

Crawley turned his gaze away. A furrow formed between his brows.

"What's your business here?" Alex asked out of vague curiosity.

"I was organising a force for some small business with the Bank, but the job's finished now."

"Did it go as planned?"

Crawley grimaced. "When we instated our plans, we understood that the adversary was mostly incompetent and we didn't devote much of our force. In the end, as far as we can tell, it only took a single operative of theirs to win."

"Win?"

"We were attempting peaceful relations between us and them – although, I admit perhaps a war game was not the best idea."

"You don't say," chuckled Alex. It was just like MI6 to think 'peaceful relations' meant 'war game'.

Crawley leaned back, unfazed. "This society was previously unknown, and we wanted to gauge their skills, as well as show our own force to ensure that they submitted to martial law."

"Were they part of this constitution, then?"

"Yes," said Crawley. "They've hiding in our society. It was only when a war of theirs spilled into the open that MI6 was made aware of their existence." He rubbed his face. "A simple capture-the-flag game should have been simple enough."

A chill settled around Alex's shoulders and he put down his fork. "A flag?"

Crawley nodded absently and took another slug of his drink.

The inconsistencies, the skirting of topics by Seamus and his people clicked into place. Alex's mouth was dry. "Was this flag perhaps in a chapel of a university?"

Crawley stared at him.

"And you're telling me this flag was just that – a flag. Not – not something else? Something dangerous?"

A slight nod and a quizzical glance.

The same lost feeling that had almost overcome Alex in Cairo when Smithers revealed his true body resurfaced with greater force. Smithers had lied to him, made him believe he had to take the job to save the world, or something. 'Not just a flag', his arse.

"Well – and this is just my hypothesis, but – I'd say that the incompetent society may have recruited someone from this society under false pretences. An agent, say, used to dealing with legitimate threats. Perhaps this agent may have been recruited by another in the in the agency who came from the other society." Alex met Crawley's gaze levelly. "Say, Smithers' gadgets really are quite unbelievable, aren't they? Almost like magic."

Crawley looked at him.

"_You?_"

Alex inclined his head.

"I can't believe it," Crawley muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. "Mrs Jones will have to be told. Smithers might have to go."

Alex deflated. Suddenly, he felt empty. He placed his knife and fork together. "You'll send me the info about Hills Road?"

Crawley nodded, distracted. "You continue to want full separation from MI6?"

"No communication unless it's about Ian's plans for my life."

"I'll see you around."

"Undoubtedly."

Hannah smiled at him as he walked out. He didn't.

* * *

**END ACT ONE**

**AN: Don't worry, my peeps – the whole thing isn't over! Alex is just having a little break, though he doesn't know that :P How are you finding the story, anyway? Too flat and sad, too spurious? Let me know and I'll try to implement any changes you'd like :)**


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